Ex-soldier now providing support for veterans in need

Papamoa's Simon Ritson helped set up veteran welfare service No Duff after spending just under 11 years with the New Zealand Army. Photo / John Borren

Simon Ritson has been out of uniform for five years but is still serving his countrymen and women on the frontline at No Duff, a charity providing support for veterans in need.

The 32-year-old from Papamoa helped set up the veteran welfare service in 2016 after spending just under 11 years with the New Zealand Army.

He was in the 1st Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment and was first deployed to Indonesia following the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. He went on to serve in Afghanistan.

Ritson says more needs to be done for veteran welfare support in New Zealand and a No Duff Charitable Trust funding announcement made by the Government on Tuesday fell a bit short of that.

After the Anzac Day dawn service at Mount Maunganui yesterday, Ritson spoke to the Bay of Plenty Times about No Duff's busy first two years.

The organisation was created in 2016 after a young veteran was found homeless in Auckland, living under a tarpaulin, and in need of critical assistance.

A thread on Facebook was started with fellow military veterans looking to help the man.

An RSA in Auckland led the charge and Aaron Wood, a friend of Ritson's, was heavily involved in locating the veteran and providing him support.

Ritson and Wood then decided to fill what they saw as a gap in veteran support services in New Zealand.

"We said, look, if there's one, there's going to be more and from there we decided to form No Duff," Ritson said.

The charity has since responded more than 200 times to veterans in crisis and has more than 400 volunteers available around the world.

It has had to employ someone fulltime.

Ritson said New Zealand was generally behind other countries when it came to mental health support.

He said the New Zealand Defence Force was working very hard on mental health support and so was the New Zealand RSA. The theme of this year's Poppy Appeal was "Not All Wounds Bleed".

"I think there's a lot of work to be done, as there always is, however, at the end of the day we are making progress and moving forward so that's very positive."

Ritson said the extra work was needed at all levels, from the Government right down to RSAs, and services like No Duff needed to be included in that.

"I think if we look objectively at what's being done in terms of veteran welfare, a little more due diligence needs to be done with regards to actually assessing what the actual function and role of veteran support services are."

No Duff found out on Tuesday that it would be funded $25,000 a year by the Government for the next four years.

"That's huge in regards to what we do," Ritson said.

"More would have been great but at the end of the day I'm not having lemons for breakfast, I'm not going to get upset about it. I think it's absolutely fantastic, especially to be recognised by the Government, and move forward."

However, he said No Duff did need to employ more people in administration, co-ordination and operational roles if the charity was to meet the current need.

Without extra funding, that was going to be difficult.